StartupGiraffe
StartupGiraffe helps entrepreneurs refine, design and build their web and mobile projects.
STRATEGY
We help you define and prioritize product features to achieve business goals.
DESIGN
You set the vision; we work together to mockup and design a simple, beautiful user interface.
DEVELOPMENT
Over several weeks, we build the first version of your product with your continuous feedback.
Our Approach 01.User Experience 02.Design 03.Code 04.Review
Not long ago, launching a successful startup took a lot: A lot of money, a lot of people, and a lot of time. Nowadays, we have better technologies that allow us to build applications for the web and mobile phones much faster. Despite these advances, it's not uncommon to see startups spend over a year without ever releasing anything. Some get "feature-itis", others have difficulty recruiting technical talent, others are ashamed to release something that doesn't live up to their expectations. We founded StartupGiraffe to help entrepreneurs filter their ideas into viable products and then bring those products to market quickly.
Unlike traditional development shops, we don't just accept product requirements and crank out code (we do crank out code, but that comes later!). Instead, our process begins with product strategy, user stories, user experience testing, and interviews. This initial phase gives everyone more insight into what specific problems exist in the market and how best to address them. From here, we work with entrepreneurs to prioritize product features.
Once we've come up with a clear set of objectives, our experienced UI team starts building mockups and sending them to clients for review. After many rounds of revisions, we move onto the graphic design phase, wherein our wonderful design partners translate the entrepreneur's aesthetic vision into an attractive interface. A few rounds of design iteration later, we are ready to begin development.
With a full set of designs that we understand completely, we can build an application rapidly. Our development process leverages the knowledge and libraries we've built over the course of launching over a dozen startups. This allows us to easily incorporate key features while spending more time on whatever technical complexities your project presents. During the build, we meet regularly with entrepreneurs to demonstrate our progress, get feedback and make changes.
We devote a full week after each project to quality assurance testing (making sure everything works as it should and fixing bugs).
« Previous: Our Approach
PROJECTS Tuloko
Projects
Make Everyday Black Friday
Startup Giraffe did and excellent job on my site. The final product they created exceeded my expectations. The most common comment I get from users is "You have a beautiful site". The giraffes are great to work with. They are very responsive, knowledgeable and professional. I plan on using Statup Giraffe for any needs I have in the future and I highly recommend them. —Sean Armstrong, FounderVisit Website
The world’s most advanced electric motorcycle
"Startup Giraffe represented one of the most significant aspects of our go-to-market strategy, and our business plan. Yet, somehow, they have consistently been the least responsible for stress, problems, or delays. This has resulted in an engagement strategy to hire them as much as possible. They're fun to work with, professional, patient, and the quality of their work repeatedly evokes awe--and we are not ones to make such statements easily. They also de-risk our overall success, frankly I cannot think of a better development & strategic partner. " —Mark Seeger, President and ChairmanVisit Website
Connected Against Cancer
"I couldn't be happier with the work Startup Giraffe did for us. Their development process was thorough, empathetic, patient and focused. The site is better than I could have imagined due to their insight and feedback. Great experience, highly recommended." —Sashka Rothchild, FounderVisit Website
Connecting Designers, Editors and Stylists
"Working with Startup Giraffe was one of the most exciting and gratifying experiences -- seeing our vision come to life. The team is razor sharp, responsive, unnervingly talented, and fun to work with. Given their expertise in Ruby on Rails, they were proactive about advising us on important scalability, testing, and architecture issues. These guys are total pros and are at the top of their game in terms of their ability to identify opportunities, develop, and execute. We are constantly referring them to everyone we know." —Mandy Tang and Meggan Crum, FoundersVisit Website
Exclusive Alternative Dining Experiences
"After interviewing over 20 other developers, we chose to go with Startup Giraffe for our minimally viable product. The three main reasons for this decision were their ability to contribute to or answer important strategic business questions on the fly, the opportunity to get our product to market in just four weeks, and the fact they only take on one project at a time so we knew we had 100% of their bandwidth working towards solving our technology problems." —Adam Sirois, Co-FounderVisit Website
Land a Great Restaurant Job
"The team at StartupGiraffe is not only talented at web development, but they have proven to be excellent strategic partners in the growth of EatDrinkJobs. We highly recommend them." —Julie Lerner and Jason Miller, FoundersVisit Website
The Music Distribution Network
"Working with Startup Giraffe is like swag surfing - they take your startup to new levels so that it can generate enough energy to create its own momentum, so much so that your startup will literally start to move and function solely from swag." —Andrew Zarick, CEOVisit Website
Safe, Secure S3 Backups
DataWalrus, another in-house project, helps companies protect their data from human errors, malicious users, and Amazon outages.
Visit WebsiteOur Team
We're a small team of developers that love to make products. We also like watching the nature channel and making animal noises.
AMIT KLEIN
Amit, who has a remarkable collection of t-shirts, has been managing software teams and designing products for the past 8 years. A computer science major back in college, he is also a skilled developer who cranks out code for Startup Giraffes. A noted Hindi poet (by at least 5 people), Amit also enjoys playing basketball and teaching his new dog old tricks.
JOHN CIHOCKI
Johnny, who is sometimes mistaken for Waldo, is the Chief Technical Architect of the Startup Giraffes. He has been developing products for over a decade, including customer web portals, corporate intranets and web content management systems for a broad range of clients from small non profits and hospitals to fortune 100 pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and financial services companies. He is fluent in Java, Ruby, PHP, Python, a bunch of other languages, and Pig Latin.
WILL LERNER
A one-time intramural sports champion, Will gave up his aspirations to become a professional baseball player to build products with the giraffes. He is now a front-end developer, copywriter, and UI designer with the Startup Giraffes. In his spare time, he tries to pull himself away from the computer but often fails.
A. ROSS COHEN
Our newest giraffe Ross is a dynamite backend developer with a thing for manipulating big data in cool ways. With experience in Ruby on Rails, C, Assembly and a bunch of other languages that are completely foreign to most people, he could probably write an old Nintendo game if he wanted to (he doesn’t want to). In his spare time, Ross plays drums, guitar and bass (not at the same time… yet) and hacks on various awesome side projects. He’s also a killer snowboarder, brah.
We’re Hiring – Front-end Giraffe
May 22, 2013 · 1 CommentStartupGiraffe.com helps entrepreneurs design and build new software ventures. We’ve launched 20 startups in the last 2 years. We’re looking for a front end engineer to join us in our SoHo, NYC office. About You: – You want to lead front-end development on new products – You’re comfortable translating AI files into responsive front-ends – You have experience with jQuery, …
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WHAT D'YA WANNA KNOW?
FAQ
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How long will it take to complete my project?
From user experience through quality assurance testing, our typical project takes 7 weeks. Why 7 weeks? We've found that that's enough time for us to do a thorough job on each of the phases while not so much time that we get bogged down in minutia that aren't really necessary to test the startup's main business assumptions. We are firm believers that getting a product in front of actual users is far more valuable than building extra small features that probably won't have a great effect for better or for worse. Instead, we want entrepreneurs to wait to build additional features until they have proof from users that those features will really help. -
How much will my project cost?
Exact pricing depends on the project, but our typical project costs $50k and 5% equity for a 7-week project. In certain cases we are able to flex the cash/equity ratio. -
Why does Startup Giraffe charge equity?
We take equity in companies for several reasons. Firstly, it helps us keep our fees lower. Secondly, it gives us more incentive to plan for the product’s growth and success. As equity holders, we have a stake in continuing to provide technical advice, take technical interviews and offer strategic advice long after our initial build is over. -
When is equity distributed?
Startup Giraffe takes equity only at the time of company formation. For more information on this process, feel free to contact us. -
What happens after our first version is done?
Once we have delivered the first iteration of the product, our involvement becomes more strategic. We offer technical, marketing and product feedback as needed. First version in hand, you can then explore raising additional funds, validating assumptions, gathering customer feedback and finding a technical co-founder. In certain cases we also work with our partners on follow on iterations. -
What technologies do you use?
Depends on the project but generally: Ruby on Rails, Rubymotion, Scss, jQuery, MongoDB, Sendgrid, Amazon S3, Github, Stripe, and a whole bunch of 3rd party integrations (Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yelp, etc...) -
Who do you like working with?
We like to work with founders who are uniquely positioned to execute on the problem they are attacking. Usually this means they have deep domain experience and know how they will get their first customers. Being nice, fun and easy to work with is also important. -
I know exactly what I want and just need a team to execute, can you do this?
We like to come in at a strategic level and help people define solutions. If you know exactly what you are looking and aren’t interested in feedback we’re probably not the best fit. -
Will you sign an NDA?
Probably not. We hear dozens of ideas every month and we don't ever want to be in a position where we can't work on another project because we spoke with someone who had a slightly similar idea. This post sums it up.
CONTACT US
Contact
Startup Giraffe
120 Walker St. - 5th Floor
New York, NY 10013
email: contact@startupgiraffe.com
